Daddy's Boy
Daddy's Boy is a second season episode of House which first aired on November 8, 2005. A twenty two year old who is having seizures has a strained relationship with his father which makes it hard for the team to diagnose him. Meanwhile, House tries to avoid a dinner with his parents. Recap The night before his graduation ceremony from Princeton University, Carnell Hall has dinner with father. He then goes to a party where he drinks heavily. During the party, he feels as if he is receiving severe electric shocks in his back. He then goes into a seizure. After a week of treatment, Wilson forces House to take the case by reminding him that he owes Wilson $5,000. House goes through a number of routine diagnoses that Wilson has already eliminated. House hands the case over to his team with only the instruction "something's missing". The team goes to take a medical history and Carnell admits to some minor drug use. The medical history itself doesn't give any clues. Meanwhile, House is showing what he did with the $5,000 - he has bought a motorcycle. He also talks Wilson into taking him to dinner that Thursday. House tells his team that he suspects the cause is genetic. And they check for abnormal growths of the cranial nerves. However, when they reveal to Carnell that his mother died in a car accident and the team feels his condition may be related, he learns for the first time that his mother didn't die at the hands of a drunk driver - his father lied to him to get him to behave. Meanwhile, Carnell loses control of his bowels without realizing it. The sphincter paralysis sets the team thinking again, and House's original diagnosis is clearly wrong. While the team is deliberating, House takes a phone call that turns out to be his mother. He says he is busy the Thursday night she and House's father will be in town en route to Europe. The team thinks it might be molecular mimicry and the team goes to test for it. At the same time, the team wonders about what type of parents House must have had to turn out the way they did. Cameron goes to Wilson to talk about House skipping meeting his parents to have dinner with him. Wilson is a little preoccupied as he tells Cameron he has lent House substantial amounts of money four times. When Cameron finds out Wilson is not meeting House on Thursday for anything important, she suggests Wilson invite House's parents to dinner too. When Carnell is alone with the doctors away from his father, he admits to the team he went to Jamaica without his father's permission. However, the team can't see that this information helps them. The team does suggest that since he does smoke marijuana, he might have pesticide poisoning despite no real evidence to support this conclusion. When House learns Wilson invited his parents to dinner, he is furious. He offers to pay back Wilson the money if he calls off the dinner. Wilson agrees. At this point, House admits to Wilson that he has been borrowing increasing amounts of money from Wilson to find out how far he would go. House pays Wilson back the $5,000 but Wilson refuses to call off the dinner date, telling House he has been telling successively larger lies to see how far House would go. Wilson suggests that if House doesn't want to see his parents, he should tell them himself. Meanwhile, Carnell is responding to treatment for poisoning - his appetite has returned and his sphincter paralysis goes away. However, Carnell is soon in distress again and House has no idea why. Carnell is now exhibiting a fever, the team suspects an infection. The sphincter paralysis has returned. It appears to the team that the infection isn't related to the original disease, but it the result of the patient being immunocompromised. Meanwhile, the team talks about whether they want to meet House's parents on Thursday. Cameron goes to find out who Carnell went to Jamaica with, and Carnell admits the trip to his father. Desperate to avoid his parents, House even tries to get clinic duty Thursday night, but Cuddy is in on the dinner and refuses. At this point, House admits he loves his mother, but can't stand his father. Cameron goes to visit one of Carnell's friends, who is exhibiting a rash around his groin. Cameron looks at it and suggests he come to the hospital, but the friend refuses. Cameron describes the rash as being similar to a diaper rash. House suggests lying to the friend that the rash is life-threatening. Cameron consults with Cuddy to see if the lie would be unethical. Meanwhile, Carnell's symptoms become worse as he starts bleeding into his abdomen. He gets emergency surgery, but the bleeding colon shows the antibiotics aren't working. However, lying to the friend becomes a moot issue as he is admitted to emergency vomiting blood. House suspects an STD, but the friend denies having sex with Carnell. He then reveals that Carnell's father owns a scrap metal yard, not a construction company. Carnell's father lied about his occupation figuring his son would get better treatment. House finds out that Carnell received a piece of old sculpted metal from his father that he uses as a good luck charm. House discovers the charm is highly radioactive - it was a piece of radioactive metal used to test welds. The team realizes the radioactivity has destroyed Carnell's immune system. A tumor in Carnell's spinal cord is causing the shocks: it can't be removed without great risk to Carnell, and it will eventually kill him if it is not removed. Meanwhile, House's parents show up. House once again tries to get of seeing them, but agrees to eat with them in the cafeteria. On the way, they meet Cameron and invite her, but she declines. Carnell undergoes surgery, and the tumor is removed. However, after the surgery, Carnell starts hemorrhaging. Chase goes to Carnell's father and tells him that Carnell is not going to be able to fight off the infections. House tries to make conversation with his parents. His father admonishes him for not realizing how lucky he is. His mother tells him he's perfect just the way he is. Cameron visits House to tell him about the patients. House confides in Cameron that his father has an "insane moral compass" that won't let him lie about anything, which made him a terrible father. Wilson tells Cameron that the real problem between House and his parents is that he has been a disappointment. When Cameron doesn't understand why his parents are disappointed despite the fact House is a famous doctor, Wilson says it has nothing to do with that - House's parents are disappointed because their son is miserable despite his success. Carnell's father goes to visit his son, and tells him he will be fine, although he knows otherwise. Major Events * It is revealed that House bought a motorbike with the five grand Wilson lent him and it is also shown to be the fourth time that Wilson has lent House a large sum of money. * House's parents arrive in New Jersey to see him. * House is shown to have a very frosty relationship with his father.